How Nature Cures

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How Nature Cures

 

HOW TO BE HEALTHY THOUGH BROKE

 

When I wrote the first edition of DOCTOR YOURSELF in

1980, Americans spent something over $100 billion a

year attempting to buy health. Today, nineteen years

later, we spend well over $1,000 billion annually and

yet we are still largely an unhealthy society. If you

don't agree, consider this: you are not 100% well if

you wear glasses or contact lenses, have dandruff, bad

breath, indigestion or stomach aches, constipation,

headaches, allergies, aches or pains, chronic coughs

or colds, dental fillings, plates or dentures, braces,

athlete's foot, rashes, pimples, stiff joints or don't

sleep well. You are also not 100% well if you take

any medication whatsoever. Since 98% of Americans

have had, do have or will develop tooth decay (and who

hasn't taken medicine?) it is a pretty safe bet that

you have an ailment listed above. This does not

necessarily mean you are seriously ill, or that you

are inconvenienced in any major way.

 

Consider, though, the money spent by 270 million

Americans each month on cold remedies, sleeping pills,

aspirin, laxatives, denture cleaners, salves,

ointments, and such. Then think of the number of days

lost each year from work (or recreation) by colds and

other minor illnesses. Now think of the millions of

people that daily are resigned to the accepted

discomfort of these ailments. How many people have

been told by their doctor that they will " just have to

learn to live with it " or that " you're just getting

old " ? Wouldn't it seem that for all the time and

money and comfort lost by these problems that there

must be some way of bettering our health? How about

learning to live without it?

 

If you carry health insurance, visit a doctor or

hospital, or pay taxes, you are paying for health, and

maybe not really getting it. Yet you have free,

24-hour access to the world's most sophisticated and

priceless diagnostic apparatus: your body's feelings.

If you don't feel well, don't let someone tell you

that you are well. This includes the hypochondriacs,

for fear of disease is itself a disorder that can be

cured with something as simple as the vitamin niacin,

or through stress reduction training. You can't fool

your body, nor can you go against nature... at least

not for long. Similarly, it's not good to maintain

that there is no need for you to eat better, exercise

or learn more just because you think your health is

acceptable for the moment.

 

The body has ways of letting us know when something

is not right. Pain is one such way of telling us that

whatever it is we're doing, it is damaging to us. To

have a pain and then to take a pain reliever so it

will go away is like driving a car with the " low oil

pressure " light on and putting black tape over it so

that you won't notice the warning anymore. If you

keep driving that way you can easily wreck your

engine, when if you'd stop and look under the hood for

a moment, you could prevent any further trouble.

Millions of people every day drive their bodies

without wanting to pay attention to the warning light

of pain or discomfort. Aspirin, Darvon, Tylenol and

others are doing nothing to relieve the source or the

reason for the pain. They are just bottles of black

tape to hide the body's warnings with. When such

people as use them find themselves on their backs in a

hospital, they wonder why. What happened? The body

was not paid attention to, that's what. No one looked

under the hood, so to speak, and the body was driven

into the ground.

 

Pain is a symptom, and the treatment of the symptom

without getting at the root cause of the symptom is

valueless. Pain is not something to be covered over

and stamped out but is rather a clue to tracing back

into your body just where and why it hurts. All the

" Ben-Gay " in the country is not going to relieve the

real cause of backache from a vertebra that's out of

place. But a chiropractor often can properly realign

the vertebra, relieving both the cause (pinched nerve)

and the effect (pain). This is one example of

treating the real cause of a symptom.

 

It is a corner-stone of allopathic, or drug-oriented

medicine, that symptoms are to be eliminated. Runny

noses are stopped up, coughs halted, diarrhea dried

off, fevers lowered, rashes salved over, sneezes ended

and upset stomachs neutralized, and all by medicines.

Allopathic medicine holds that each symptom is in

itself an illness, and that treatment for different

symptoms is by different medicines. Naturopathic

medicine and treatment ultimately eliminates symptoms,

regardless of their diverse appearances, by total

cleansing of the body from the inside out. All the

different expressions of the body's desire to

eliminate wastes or toxic materials, called symptoms,

are encouraged and utilized by naturopathy. Fevers

are not repressed, but allowed or sometimes even

created under carefully controlled circumstances.

Diarrhea is seen as nature's enema, and enemas are an

important part of bowel cleansing. Sneezing and

coughing are reflex reactions by the body to foreign

material or irritation, and are regarded as

inconvenient but desirable. A runny nose or a rash is

a sign that the body is ridding itself of wastes.

Since naturopathy allows all of these symptoms to run

their course, it is not at first as comfortable as

medical treatments giving immediate relief. Nature's

therapy, however, is more thorough and longer lasting.

 

One can see that the first lesson in natural cure is

to not do things: to not take medicines, pain killers,

over-the-counter cold remedies, etc. The body is not

an opponent to be battled against with drugs, but is

an intelligent, immeasurably complicated living system

that will seek its own best good automatically. Given

the chance, your body will heal itself. This is a

fundamental of nature-cure. All naturopathic

treatments are designed to help the body and to give

it the chance to heal itself. Perhaps you aren't

confident that your body will heal without medicines

or operations. Think of how you got here in the first

place. Your body is the result of the combination and

multiplication of just two original half-cells called

gametes. From the possibly unintentional and

certainly unsupervised combination of only two

microscopic bits came your present body: trillions of

highly organized cells. And how much supervision do

you give these trillions of cells daily? Do you

oversee the digestion of food molecules into each

cell? Do you control the proportions of carbon,

hydrogen and oxygen in each one? Do you have to

remind yourself to breathe or check to be sure you

pump blood every second twenty-four hours a day?

 

Right now, right where you sit, take a minute and try

an experiment. Try to die. Go ahead, try to stop

living. I don't expect that you will have much

success. This tendency of your body to stay alive is

called homeostasis: the natural balance of life

forces in you that keeps you going, whether you choose

too or not. In that moment when you stopped to see if

you could halt your body's work by intention alone,

perhaps you felt a sampling of the power that carries

on the work inside you. This power is the power

behind naturopathy.

 

The healing power of nature (vis medicatrix naturae

in Latin) is behind all cures, whether with the aid of

natural therapies or in spite of medical ones. Your

body will heal itself; again, this is the first rule

of nature cure. So far we have mentioned the

importance of " listening " to your body's calls for

aid, such as pains and discomforts, and not hiding or

masking over such clues with drugs. We have said that

naturopathic treatment gets to the root of cause of

symptoms through cleansing of the body from the inside

out. We have also said that the tendency of your body

is towards health, and this tendency is automatic and

powerful. At this point, though, we can stop and say,

" Well, if the body will heal itself, why are there so

many illnesses and diseased people? Something must be

amiss. " That's right, something is.

 

It is difficult but very important to understand the

second principle of nature-cure. This is that all

disease (or dis-ease), all sicknesses, all illnesses

are differing expressions of one root cause of disease

which is termed systemic toxemia. Systemic toxemia

basically means " polluted body " . The underlying

factor, the common origin of sickness, is a body

filled with wastes, chemicals, and poisons. Such a

garbaged-up body may express its plight as this

disease or that illness, each with its particular set

of symptoms. These are desperate measures on the part

of the organism to throw off the accumulated wastes

and toxins, or to cope with its weakened condition.

This toxic condition results from wrong living,

meaning eating useless foods, or relying on medicinal

drugs and chemicals, among other things. Over a

period of time, often many years, the body's strength

is eroded and its natural defenses weakened such that

it no longer seems capable of healing itself.

 

It is precisely at this juncture that the biggest

mistake in disease management is generally made. The

really sick body is seen as helpless, and seen as such

is given all sorts of drugs and medicines to fight

disease for it. Such a noble and even logical action

is, unfortunately, completely wrong. The last thing

that the organism needs is more pollutants and

chemicals to live with when it's fighting to clean

itself out. What it does need is to be assisted in

its cleansing and rebuilding work with rest, baths,

mineral and vitamin therapy and whole, unprocessed

foods. What's more, a vegetable juice " fast " is used

first to give the body the chance to clean house

totally. It is worth reading any book by Dr. Paavo

Airola, such as Health Secrets from Europe (1972) or

How to Get Well (1980) for specific benefits, cures

and research references regarding fasting, plus

sensible and detailed hints for directing one's own

program. Fasting works, and many serious illnesses

have been known to succumb to properly supervised

fasting treatment. One should consult a physician

before commencing a fast.

 

When we say that the cause of all disease and all

diseases is a body full of wastes, we will run into

direct opposition with the medical profession. When

we maintain that the cure, therefore, of all disease

is total cleansing of the body from inside out, we

will again go against the medical, drug-and-surgical

approach to illness. Make no mistake about this:

there are two completely different and mutually

exclusive views here. Perhaps the following

illustration will help.

 

 

The Two Lakes Analogy

 

Let's assume that there are two identical lakes, Lake

A and Lake B. Let's also assume that there is a city

along side of each lake and that these cities are also

identical. We'll cleverly call them City A and City B.

Each city has sewage and other wastes that it pumps

into the nearby lake. Each city has factories and

houses and public buildings that for years have used

the lake for their waste disposal, and as a result

both Lake A and Lake B are quite polluted.

 

It is possible to tell how polluted a body of water

is by testing for the presence of coliform bacteria.

If such bacteria are present in number, the water is

unclean; ecologists do this test often. Each lake is

polluted, and coliform bacteria turn up in both Lake A

and Lake B. At this point, we can begin the analysis

of why the lakes are unclean and what is to be done.

 

Doctor A (for allopathic) comes in and studies the

findings about Lake A, and Doctor B (for biological)

comes in and studies the findings on Lake B. Dr. A

reasons as follows: " We know that Lake A is polluted

because of the presence of coliform bacteria, for

coliform bacteria and pollution are generally found

together. Since this is so, it must be the bacteria

that cause the lake to be polluted. Because the

bacteria cause the pollution, we can kill all of the

bacteria and thereby eliminate pollution. My

prescription, then, is to add chemicals to the lake to

kill all of the bacteria. "

 

In accordance with Doctor A's instructions, two

truckloads of " DRANO " are dumped into Lake A. This

surely kills all the bacteria, for the next time the

water is tested for coliform bacteria, there aren't

any. Dr. A then concludes that the water is now

clean.

 

Doctor B takes a different approach. Says he: " We

know that Lake B is polluted, and we know that there

are coliform bacteria in the lake as well. Bacteria

thrive in a polluted environment because waste matter

provides their food. The reason there are so many

bacteria is because there is so much sewage and other

waste in the lake for bacteria to live on. So the way

to rid the lake of bacteria is to rid the lake of

wastes first. Let's eliminate or at least greatly

reduce the inflow of pollutants into this body of

water. Then the lake will clean itself through

natural processes that break down the waste materials,

and without the constant addition of more pollutants,

it will become clean again. As its food supply of

waste decreases, the bacteria population will

automatically decrease at the same time. "

 

In accordance with Doctor B's instructions, sewage

treatment plants are installed and other

pollutant-reducing measures taken in City B. This

greatly cuts down on the wastes flowing into Lake B,

and the population of bacteria falls. The next time

the lake is tested for coliform bacteria, there are

virtually none. Dr. B concludes that Lake B is now

clean.

 

Here, then, is how things stand: Lake A contains a

poisonous chemical in addition to the original wastes,

plus the added pollution from continued sewage flow

into the water every day. Dr. A said this water is

clean because of the absence of coliform bacteria.

Lake B contains little or no waste, for inflow of

pollutants was cut way down. What little sewage does

get by the treatment plants is easily broken down

naturally by the lake, and the lake contains no

" Drano. "

 

From which lake would you prefer to drink?

 

Which lake do you consider to be cleaner? I would

say Lake B.

 

Now Dr. A basically took a medical point of view and

Dr. B took a naturopathic point of view. Dr. A, like

a good allopathic practitioner, set out to kill the

" germs " or bacteria that " caused " the pollution or

" disease " in Lake A. To back up his premise that the

bacteria caused the problem, he cited the fact that

the bacteria are always found along with pollution.

 

Dr. B also saw bacteria present with pollution, but

did not conclude that bacteria cause pollution, but

that pollution causes bacteria. This is why

naturopaths say that systemic toxemia, or a polluted

body, is behind all infection, disease and illness.

Just because germs or bacteria are present at the

scene of disease does not mean that they therefore

caused the disease. Just because police detectives

are observed at the scene of a crime doesn't mean they

committed the crime.

 

When we begin to see germs more as scavengers trying

to clean up refuse, as opposed to being little deadly

gremlins out to get us, we can begin to take

confidence that nature does heal and that our body

will clean itself of the roots of illness. If your

body is clean and healthy, germs are irrelevant.

There is a lack of conclusive proof that germs are the

primary cause of any disease. The bibliography in

this book lists references that show that

malnutrition, medicines and wrong living are more

basic, underlying roots of disease. Germs are

everywhere; why aren't we all sick? Right now, on

your tongue and in your mouth, there are enough

different types of germs to wipe out your neighborhood

if the germs really could make sickness.

 

They can't. It is sickness that provides for the

proliferation of germs.

 

So what does eliminate sickness? The promotion of

health. Nature-cure physicians know that adding

Drano, or penicillin, or any other drug, chemical or

antibiotic to a living system does not aid the system.

Killing germs is not building health, it's just

killing germs. When the germs, like many agricultural

insect pests, become resistant to the poisons being

used against them, new drugs must be developed in an

attempt to stay a jump ahead of the microbial world.

Human bodies receive poison after poison, drug after

drug, from doctor after doctor. It's small wonder

that we fill hospital after hospital, nursing home

after nursing home with bodies ravaged not by germs as

much as by drugs. Natural treatment offers a

completely different approach: first build health, and

illness will automatically decrease.

 

Copyright C 1999 and prior years Andrew W. Saul.

From the books DOCTOR YOURSELF, QUACK DOCTOR and

PAPERBACK CLINIC, available from Dr. Andrew Saul,

Number 8 Van Buren Street, Holley, New York 14470.